Falling Apart
by SomethingOutOfNothing
Summary: "Lisbon!" Jane yelled, as Lisbon heard a crashing in the background. "He's… He's here Lisbon. Red John. He's here." Jane left Red John in his past and moved on, now Red John has come back to punish him for it. Because he doesn't like to be forgotten.


**I would like to say that I had no intention of ever uploading this fic, because it depressed me a stupid amount just writing it, but Carly was being... Insistant. So, as usual, her fault. We had a deal, and this is me holding up my end. Again. Someone remind me never to make deals with her again. **

**I don't own The Mentalist or any of it's characters.**

**Please, feel free to tell me to never write anything again. I would totally understand. Because as I told SOMEBODY, I don't usually do angst.**

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><p>It was ten o'clock at night when Lisbon got the call. She fished her phone out from her jacket pocket, not bothering to look at the caller ID. "Lisbon," she answered, not taking her eyes off the game that was playing across the TV. She would usually be at Jane's on a Friday night; it was the routine they'd had for the last five years they'd been together. But last night… they'd had a fight and so far they'd both been too stubborn to apologize.<p>

She didn't even realise who she was talking to until Jane's scratchy voice came over the line. "Lisbon, I'm in trouble. I- I need help."

Teresa Lisbon had never moved so fast. She grabbed her car keys and was out the door within two minutes, leaving the TV still playing in her living room. In all the years she had known Patrick Jane, never had he asked for help in that tone. The tone that made her heart pound in her ears. The one that made her want to throw up.

The one she had heard used too many times… By cops who thought they were going to die.

"Jane? Jane, where are you?" Lisbon asked, she had texted the office to trace Jane's phone in case he hung up first, but she had a feeling he was going to hold onto her voice for as long as he could. There was something in his voice… Something she wasn't used to hearing there.

Fear… Pure terror.

"Lisbon!" Jane yelled, as Lisbon heard a crashing in the background. "He's… He's here Lisbon. Red John. He's here."

Lisbon could feel tears pricking her eyes. "Jane, run! Run!" She knew it was useless, but she just needed to buy some time until she got there…

The address came through from the office. Jane's house.

Jane's voice brought Lisbon back to the phone call. Quite possible the last phone Patrick Jane would ever make. "Lisbon? He's at the front door. He's about to break the lock. I know you're probably not going to get to me in time… So there's something I want to say…" he took a deep breath. "I love you Teresa. I know I've never said it before, and I know I should have. I wish I did. But you know that, right? You knew I loved you didn't you?" Jane asked. Lisbon could hear the need for reassurance in his voice, and luckily she didn't have to lie to do it.

"Yeah, I know. I love you too." Lisbon said, trying to keep her voice steady through her tears.

"Yeah…" Jane replied. "Thank you. For everything."

"Jane, I'm going to get to you, okay?" Lisbon said, trying to sound like she had any sort of confidence in that statement.

"Teresa, we both know that's a lie." Lisbon could hear Jane crying now. It was quite possibly the single most heartbreaking thing she'd ever heard.

"No, don't you do that to me Patrick. Not now. Not after everything we've been through. Don't you give up on me!" Lisbon yelled, speeding towards Jane's house as fast as she could. She knew though, she knew it wasn't going to be enough.

Jane laughed. "Next weekend was going to be our anniversary. You remember when I first asked you on a date? I was a mess. I thought you would hit me, possibly shoot me. But you said yes. You made me the happiest man alive when you said that."

Lisbon smiled a little at the memory. "You took me to a carnival. Told me stories about what it was like for you growing up…"

"It was one of the best nights of my life." Jane replied quietly. "I can see him, Teresa. He's coming up the stairs… He's being rather slow. I suppose it's meant to scare me more. It's certainly working. I was going to take you out to dinner next weekend, you know. A big fancy restaurant, I know you hate them, but I figured I might as well do it right."

"Do what?" Lisbon asked, indulging Jane's unspoken final wish to talk about everything and nothing.

Jane laughed again, without humour. "I was going to ask you to marry me. Would you have said yes, Teresa?"

"Yes." Lisbon felt a fresh lot of tears start falling, but made no move to stop them.

"The ring… It's um… It's hidden in my sock draw at your place… Will you wear it for me? I'll understand if you say no…"

"Yeah, of course." Lisbon smiled. "I know you don't believe in the afterlife… But if there is something after this… Wait for me, okay? I'd love to meet your wife and your little girl."

"Yeah, they'd love you… He's here, at the door. It's time. I love you, Teresa. Don't ever forget that. And I want you to remember it's not your fault. Okay? It's not. I'm going to hang up now… I don't want you to hear what's going to happen next…"

"I love you too, Patrick. I'm going to find him, okay? I promise." Lisbon was crying so hard now she could hardly think straight. "I'll do that for you…"

"Goodbye Teresa."

Then the line went dead.

Lisbon knew she would be too late, she didn't want Jane to be alone, even in death, but she couldn't go in. Lisbon knew Red John would be long gone anyway. She called it in when she reached his driveway and waited. She couldn't go in there alone, she knew she couldn't. She would cling to his bloody, cut up body and never let it go.

She would destroy any evidence that could lead them to Red John. And she wasn't going to do that. She would catch him. She promised.

The others arrived within fifteen minutes and she just nodded towards the house. "I understand if you don't want to go in." She said not looking Cho, Rigsby or Van Pelt in the eye. She couldn't go in there herself, how could she ask her team to?

They waited there with her. She knew if Jane was there with them he'd make some crack about them being the best the CBI had, but not being able to look at a body. She would yell at him, but they would both know she didn't mean it.

But that wouldn't happen anymore. Because Patrick Jane was dead. Red John had killed him.

When the coroner brought the body out, no matter how hard she tried not to, she lost it. She broke. She turned into Cho's shoulder and cried, taking small comfort in the fact that Grace was doing the same in Rigsby's arms. She didn't care that it was a crime scene, that they were professionals; all she cared about was the man that was covered by a thin white sheet, with red patches all over, in the back of a coroners van.

They waited three hours for the forensics team to be finished, before they went in. "You sure you're okay to do this?" Rigsby, who was trying his best to hide his own moist eyes, asked her. They'd all known about her and Jane, and they'd supported it. They knew that before Jane, Lisbon's social life was almost non-existent, and before Lisbon, Jane was hell bent on killing Red John. He still was after they were official, just to a much lesser extent.

"No." She replied honestly. She wasn't okay to do this. Not at all. But she also knew she needed to. Her team understood that.

They all walked slowly up the stairs. The stairs Lisbon had gone up and down so many times before. Jane's house had changed so much since they'd gotten together. It had become less of a house and more of a home. But now, it was just like Lisbon, an empty shell.

The team reached the door to Jane's bedroom, and Rigsby slowly pushed it open, revealing the tell-tale sign of Red John. But there was something different. After Lisbon opened her eyes, forcing the tears down at least until she was alone, knowing she had to be strong for her team, she looked at the wall and there, written in the same blood (Jane's blood. She tried not to think about it. Red John cutting him… Using his blood to do the face… The message… Jane crying out in pain…)

_He was FORGETTING me. _

Lisbon turned around, straight past Cho, Rigsby and Grace and down stairs, not stopping until she was outside. When she got outside, she leaned heavily on the car, tears pouring out of her eyes against her will. She collapsed against the door. She couldn't do this. She wouldn't be able to go back to the CBI. She wouldn't be able to look at that couch and not think about who should be lying on it.

"Boss?" Grace asked, softly, her eyes puffy and red with tear tracks running down her face.

"I just need to… I need to… Go… Away from here…" Lisbon mumbled more to herself than Grace. She got in the car and before Grace could stop her, drove away.

Lisbon drove straight back to her apartment. She didn't know what she was going to do. For the last five years, her life had been Patrick Jane, it might have even started before that… Who was she kidding? It started the first time he walked into the CBI with that cocky grin on his face, even though she hated him.

She rushed into her apartment, the TV still playing from when she had rushed out. Lisbon ran into the bedroom she more often than not shared with Jane, and ripped open the sock draw, finding exactly what she was looking for. Calmly, she took the cross from around her neck and slipped the ring onto the chain with it.

She stared at the cross; it seemed to be mocking her. Laughing at her. "Why?" She whispered to the empty room. "Why?" She yelled to the silent room and threw the cross across the room. Immediately she called her boss, who had already been advised that she would probably be calling, requesting a leave of absence, which was granted for however long she required.

Less than a month later, Teresa Lisbon admitted herself into a mental institution, after she almost shot herself with her sidearm while she was drunk. As Lisbon walked through the white halls with an escort at each elbow and one ahead of them- probably because she hadn't been too pleasant when they'd tried to take the necklace holding her cross and the ring- she laughed. It was a hysterical laugh. The type that could be heard all over the place she would be calling home. But she was laughing for a reason that her (at the moment) less than perfect mind found acceptable.

_When they first met, who would have thought that Patrick Jane would be what it took to undo her? No one thought they would survive a week together._

Lisbon laughed all the way to her very own white padded room.

_How wrong they were._

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><p><strong>Ok... So yeah... Review?<strong>


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